Mandi Noor Is a Hot Spot for Yemeni Cuisine

This Albany Park restaurant offers savory Middle Eastern fare.

As worldwide cuisines go, Yemeni food doesn’t get much play. This welcoming storefront in an Albany Park strip mall offers a delicious corrective. Saltah ($8) makes for an excellent gateway dish: The comforting and savory lamb stew with carrots and okra is served bubbling hot in a stone bowl with a swirl of cooling fenugreek purée. It’s considered by many to be Yemen’s national dish. Next go for some of the chewy housemade flatbread ($2), an order of golden-skinned and roasted mandi chicken ($9), and a cup of sweetened black tea ($1)—and have a second cup with a dessert of crackly, honey-soaked baklava ($1.50). You can enjoy your meal at a table or seated cross-legged in a pillow-strewn, carpeted den up front, so long as you’re cool with taking off your shoes in public. 3737 W. Lawrence Ave.